"I got hit with a bow and arrow. Got me down to the very marrow. You're a friend of mine. And I'm Real, Real Gone!" –Van Morrison

price stickers

I’ve been watching the movie, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, this morning. There is a scene in this movie where one of the girls is working in a drugstore. She is begrudgingly putting price stickers on merchandise when she decides to put a price sticker on her forehead. This reminded me of a moment in my childhood.

In the 1970’s, there was a police drama called Baretta. The theme of the show, “Keep Your Eye On The Sparrow,” opened with the line, “Don’t go to bed with a price on your head.” In my young mind, I interpreted this to mean exactly what I saw in this scene from The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants: a person with a price sticker his head. I decided I would definitely not do this, and I didn’t believe this was an exceptionally difficult promise to keep. And so far, I’ve lived up to my childhood vow.

This was not the only concept I did not understand as it was intended. But most of the time, it was because I misunderstood one of the words being used. For example, I her a ridiculous story on the news about a man who was holding fifty ostriches (hostages). I thought, why would anyone want fifty ostriches?! I also thought that Bad, Bad Leroy Brown had an eraser (razor) in his shoe to make him appear taller. It is amusing to reminisce about the things I innocently did not completely understand as a child.

This makes me wonder about what kind of things my six-year-old son doesn’t quite fully understand. Hopefully, he will have equally amusing things to tell me when he grows up to be an adult.

Please leave a comment if you’d like to share an amusing childhood misunderstanding.